Well it seems that the Labour Leader is not too keen on his own party’s proposed man ban. Vernon Small at Stuff reports:

Labour leader David Shearer may be on a collision course with the party’s Left-wing rank and file over proposals to ensure half its MPs are women – a move that would also allow for “women-only” candidate selections.

Mr Shearer declined to comment yesterday, saying through a spokesman it was “just a proposal to conference”.

But he is expected today to say that while he is in favour of more women MPs he is not convinced a quota system or a “man-ban” in some seats is the right way to achieve that.

Yet, it is the party’s ruling Council that has proposed these. Is he not a member of the Council? Did he get outvoted? Quite possibly. Remember that the party rank and file pushed through leadership rules with a special provision to make it easier for Cunliffe to challenge Shearer at the beginning of the year. He has little support at the grass roots. So where did this idea come from?

And even better Labour Auckland Central propose that if it is apparent the elections will not get at least 50% female officers, they must stop the elections and leave roles vacant. So if an electorate had no women standing for office, then they could elect no one at all!! Well done Auckland Central Labour.

So I do wonder if Jacinda is in favour of the man ban? Is this a way of stopping a challenge for the Auckland Central nomination? Or is this how they plan to stop John Tamihere winning the Waitakere nomination?

Labour added to its woes yesterday claiming in a press release it had 15 female MPs in its 34 MP line-up. It actually has only 14, even after the addition of Ikaroa-Rawhiti MP Meka Whaitiri.

So the question has to be, which male Labour MP did Labour mistake for a woman?

Josie Pagani, who stood for Labour in Rangitikei in 2011 was baffled by the move.

“I can’t understand why the Labour party would be emphasising something like this when they’re trying to get the focus on jobs and power prices and the need to get wages up, so strategically it doesn’t make sense to be talking about this right now,” she said.

“Certainly I wouldn’t stand in a seat where I felt like the implication was I couldn’t win it on my own accord without some ‘special help’,” she said.

This is the sad thing. While the motivation is good – to get more women into Parliament, it will in fact degrade and undermine female MPs. If you win a selection where men are banned from standing, then you will have less moral authority as having won your seat fair and square.

The proposals would also require the party’s list to showcase a mix of ethnicity, gender, geographical spread, sexual orientation and disability representation.

Vernon forgot youth and age also. The proposed rule says:

The Moderating Committee shall be bound by the need to arrive at a list which fairly represents tangata whenua, gender, ethnic groups, people with disabilities, sexual orientations, and age and youth.

Gingas will be upset that they are not yet on the list of groups that must be on the list. Labour are following Greens down the path of having quotas for their list ranking, so I’ve graciously given up some of my time to calculate how they can best balance their list, as I previously did with the Greens.

I hope Labour finds this useful as they can just pop candidates into the slot reserved for them. The data used to compile this balanced list for them is:

Gender – 50/50 split as mandated by their proposed quota

Ethnicity – based on 2012 Stats NZ population estimates, which are based on 2006 census data

Sexuality – have assumed 5% of population gay (includes lesbian) and 3% bisexual

Disability – data from 2006 Disability survey which shows 17% of NZ disabled, and using their major categories in proportion to prevalence

Age – based on 2012 Stats NZ estimates for adults aged between 18 and 70.

I see Grant Robertson is a supporter of the new proposed rules. Sadly for him, he will have to be demoted to No 5, and Jacinda rise to the No 2 spot.

You wonder whether a Labour Government will also introduce this to the wider public and private sector? They could insist of a 50% female quota for Cabinet, and also require the public service to have female only selections for public sector chief executives. And why not a gender quota for private sector company boards also?

In Afghanistan, young girls are denied education because there aren’t enough women leaders. Women are victimised and systematically deprived of security, livelihood and other basic rights because they are women. In that context quotas for female representation in parliament are one of the most pressing issues facing that country.

Quotas have a place as temporary measures. They’re a kickstart to getting women into powerful positions. They have their place.

But in New Zealand? I would prefer Labour to be talking about incomes, jobs, power prices, housing. Instead here we are once again trying to defend the merits of a policy to people who are open-mouthed in amazement at Labour’s priorities. Here we are using precious political oxygen trying to explain why it’s not really a ‘man ban’. We have so much more to do for women than this.

A strong women candidate does not need the handicap of people thinking she has only been selected because she is a woman, not because she is qualified.

Quotas and bans say that Labour women are not good enough to be selected ahead of men on our merits. I wouldn’t want anyone to think that of me. Helen Clark and Julia Gillard were capable of winning elections without removing men from the contest. We are not helpless dearies who need a bit of a leg up from a fixed race.

Quotas for women will undermine all women MPs. They’ll be seen as tokens.

The democratic principle at the heart of progressive politics is that any person is as good as another, we all deserve a fair go. Quotas say that what we are is more important than the content of our character or our ability to represent Labour values.

Andrew Geddis blogged here on Pundit that even David Cameron supports women-only pre-selection. But if the UK Conservatives can adopt gender quotas then there is nothing intrinsically progressive about the idea. It’s just something you do instead of making the meaningful changes that are needed to bring more qualified women through.

Also the UK has FPP. MMP allows a party to have a more diverse caucus. But quotas are a sign of no confidence in the party’s ability to balance up the complex mix of skills, geography and diversity. It is saying we want you to make sure half the caucus are women, regardless of the fact that the last woman in may be massively less competent than the man who misses out.

Labour subtly discriminates against parents. Meetings are scheduled right around bath time or over entire weekends. Pandering to internal blocs is valued over talent developed in community contexts.

We should be seeking out the women in our communities who go on school camps, sit on their school board or coach local sports teams. We should be head hunting women in the workplace who are proving themselves every day alongside male counterparts. You can’t expect these female leaders to play the silly palace politics needed to get ahead in the Labour party.

Fix childcare. Fix flexible work hours. Fix private sector recruitment so that talent gets promoted there, too, and then recruit leaders from there, from the school gates and the weekend sports fields, instead of from the internal power blocs. And value parenting as much as political parties value political networking. I would like to see all that before they put another fix in to the selection process.

Quotas and a man ban are a snake oil solution. They are an easy fix, that does nothing to get to grips with the underlying reasons why we have fewer women MPs.

Anyway me quoting something Josie says with approval, will sadly send her down three or four places on Labour’s list, regardless of quotas! They may have to reclassify her as a man, to prevent her being selected!

Related posts:

This entry was posted on Friday, July 5th, 2013 at 9:00 am and is filed under NZ Politics.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
Both comments and pings are currently closed.

In the charming comments that follow, an exception is made for My Little Pony….

The current group of Labour women MPs (the collective noun for which is a “shambles”) are ugly harridans (look it up – I had to) with faces like we used to see on Crimewatch.

So come on, Labour, go through with your Man Ban (if it makes you happy pretending that it will make the slightest bit of difference in any positive way) but how about a fair go (suck of the sav?) for attractive women election candidates? They’re grossly under-represented in Labour. And hey, if they’re sufficiently attractive to men, we might not even care if they’re not attracted to men…..

Sorry but you all wanted the absolute equality of the sexes when it came to the abomination of marriage equality,I really can’t see the logic of bitching about this latest ridiculous but oh so progressive notion.

As I said on GD Labour don’t seem to be addressing their imbalance of staffers and unionists.

You wonder whether a Labour Government will also introduce this to the wider public and private sector?

To get a proper balance they will also have to ensure that those who vote cover the appropriate categories adequately. Not eligible voters and registerd but non-voters should be like eligible and non-successful candidates – disregarded in their equations.

But this all falls to pieces if all the dwarf Downs brunette transsexual pensioners on the West Coast actually prefer Damien O’Connor.

Labour should be encouraged by all their opposition to elevate inadequate females in place of better qualified males. The more candidates displaced the lower the quality their MPs will be, and the more incompetence and hilarity will ensue. But at least they’ll be a more emotionally connected and nurturing party as a result, right? (Because feminists who value sterility over childbearing and think marriage is overrated are both very nurturing and highly emotionally stable…)

BTW, it’d be nice to see an opposition party out-do the left on its proposals. They want Maori seats, let’s push for Asian and Pacific Islander seats. They want a $15 minimum wage, let’s push a $40 one. They want equal ratios for men and women, let’s promise proportionate ratios also on race, sexual orientation, age, and so forth. Perhaps they could try that one on April 1st. It’d make a good excuse to do it but also could spark genuine debate on this sort of nonsense.

During the last Labour government I saw a sits. vacant ad for a woman whose only job was to put other women in positions of authority in a government department. I rang a few govt. departments and was informed that this was common practice. Apparently it is okay because they do the same thing for Maori, Polynesians and gays.

It’s all good and well having equal representation but this is about running the country FFS. We need to best possible people to run the country regardless of gender or ethnicity. Over 4 million people rely on the government to make our country successful. We deserve better then this kind of bullshit.

Who is pushing you ask? It’s all a cunning plan, planted by a devious former National MP. Jackie Blue – recent Judith Collins appointed Equal Employment Commissioner – is all over this and thinks “Labour is to be congratulated.”

Woman only candidate selections will not necessarily get more women into Parliament. The selected candidate would still have to win the seat. And what about list candidates. Will there be alternating men and women on the list. Sue Moroney on RNZ today said this policy would have stopped Aaron Gilmore!!! What about her. She never manages to get elected to anything. And Gilmore was a list MP.

Kowtow: “Sorry but you all wanted the absolute equality of the sexes when it came to the abomination of marriage equality,I really can’t see the logic of bitching about this latest ridiculous but oh so progressive notion.”

Isn’t the logic the other way around? Gender-agnostic marriage is effectively a denial that there is any difference between the sexes, by which logic there is no scope for any kind of gender-based quota?

By the way, if they take the same approach and bring in a quota for gay and lesbian people pro-rata to the general population we could see a lot of Labour MPs lose their seats!

This just keeps getting better! We have been joking forever on here about quotas for retarded (sorry, “special needs”) one legged lesbians…and then they go and actually DO IT! Fantastic stuff…you literally couldn’t make it up…

It seems like the left wing militant feminists only want equality when it is to there advantage. We have recently had two cases of women in there 30s have sex with very young boys. In the case of the 11 year old where pregnancy resulted there appears to be total suppression of all details. We do not know if the women has even been charged. In the case of the 13 year old the woman got home D and permanent name suppression.

If this gets through conference then the Labour party have thumbed their noses at Shearer. Shearer loses credibility. If it is rejected at conference then the left wingers hate Shearer even more. The carping persists. We now have proof that Labour is as barmy as Catherine Delahunty. There is no real difference between Labour and Greens. Just shades of lunacy.
If we ever get a Labour/Greens government it will focus on social issues and allow the economy to stagnate or worse.
The need for a 20 year period of National led prosperity is manifest.

Say what? “Fix” it? What, she doesn’t think the private sector already tries to get the best talent it can? The last thing we need is the Government telling the private sector how it should go about employing people.

As a minority left handed person I am forced to live in a uncaring majority right handed world, I look forward to Labour rectifying this injustice by ensuring that a percentage of their candidates are left handed. With appropriate adjustments for sex, gender diversification and ethnicity factored in of course.

In reality if this idea went through, how many people would it directly affect? If say the Whangarei electorate ended up with a female quota Labour candidate, what difference would it make? She would have no chance of getting in but either would a male candidate. I see no reference to divvying up the safe seats (if in fact there are any) on a quota basis. That would be the best way to achieve a 50/50 split. Is someone going to say to Phil Goff, “You can’t stand in this electorate because we want a female candidate?”

doggone7 – But if you are the LEC in a safe labour seat and you want a woman to replace Phil Goff, then you are going to put the woman in. It will still be a safe labour seat and the woman would get voted in. So, I think the answer to your question is, “yes” someone might indeed say exactly that.